Recently there was a thread on best opening lines from books. That got me to thinking, a dangerous habit I must admit.
I though of the last lines, or paragraph maybe, from books, short stories, novellas, whatever, that really stick in your mind.
There’s well known classics, like The Ramans do everything in threes. from Rendezvous With Rama, by Clarke.
Then there is the obscure. A favorite short story of mine “He Walked Around the Horses” was by the sci-fi author H.Beam Piper. This is a tale in which a British diplomat falls into an alternate timeline, in Germany, 1809. It’s told as a series of letters between German and British authorities, who are trying to figure out what to do with this guy whose papers seem so authentic, but are not quite right. The final letter is from a British official, and he notes the parallels between both worlds, of folks like Sir Thomas Lawrence, Talleyrand, and a Corsican military strategist named Napolione Buonaparte(who is loyal to the French monarchy)
He ends his letter thusly: I was baffled however, by one name, frequently mentioned in those fantastic papers. This was the English general Wellington. I haven’t the least idea who this person might be.
(Signed) Sir Arthur Wellesley
That always cracks me up!
So what are your favorite last lines/endings?
Yahweh said, “You have been concerned for the vine, for which you have not labored, neither made it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night. Shouldn’t I be concerned for Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred twenty thousand persons who can’t discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much livestock?” :eek:
The last line of A Painful Case from James Joyce’s Dubliners: “He felt he was alone.” The whole story paints an entirely unsympathetic picture of Mr. James Duffy, and then your heart just breaks for him. How’d he do that?
(The last line of Ulysses is pretty kick ass, too-- but I guess that’s cheating.)
I was kind of nonplussed about the book as a whole, but the last line of The Accidental Tourist got to me. The whole thing was kind of dead and unfeeling, and then it just had a sudden knock-out punch of optimism:
“The spangles were old water spots, or maybe the markings of leaves, but for a moment Macon thought they were something else. They were so bright and festive, for a moment he thought they were confetti.”
Darn you Katisha! If only a didn’t have a small semblance of a life, I could spend all my time here. Then I would have been the first to note that great last line from the Lord of the Rings, ““Well, I’m back” he said”.
The last line of Araby, from Dubliners: Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.
I don’t have the exact quote to hand but the last line of Portnoy’s Complaint is something like:
“… and so now we may begin, yes, master Portnoy?”
which throws the whole book into an entirely new light.
In a similar vein is the last line of the Ambrose Bierce story An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, which from memory is roughly :
Then the rope snapped tight around his neck and he was dead.
Probably the most famous last line in American literature is from The Great Gatsby: “So we beat on, boats against the current, ceaselessly into the past.”
A correction:
“The Nine Billion Names of God,” Arthur C. Clarke.
“Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out.”
The French army had entered Toledo. The Inquisition was in the hands of its enemies. – The Pit and the Pendulum
Despite it being in the first person and being obvious that he survived, you get so sucked into the story that you forget that and the last paragraph catches you off guard and the last two sentences make you cheer at the idea of the Inquisition falling.
Also “Villains!” I shrieked, “dissemble no more! I admit the deed! – tear up the planks! – here, here! – it is the beating of his hideous heart!” – The Tell-Tale Heart
Excession, by Iain M. Banks. The epilogue is a punctuation-free report by a universe-hopping scout drone that, by its very presence, caused a WHOLE lotta ruckuss. At the end of its report to its superiors, it sez:
“…lastly in recognition of the foregoing i wish now to be known hereafter as the excession”
It’s such an irony for the story… this infinitely powerful entity, named for its amazing excessive abilities, turning out to be this humble scout, a low-ranking being taking orders from its master… and taking an ironic delight in its name.
I tried to think of a good Shakespearean finale for this thread but, actually, Shakespeare’s plays don’t often have knockout closing lines. Though King John’s is pretty cool:
This England never did, nor never shall,
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,
But when it first did help to wound itself.
Now these her princes are come home again,
Come the three corners of the world in arms,
And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue,
If England to itself do rest but true.
And, changing authors but in keeping with the Renaissance motif of this post, I’ve always loved the ending of Paradise Lost:
They, looking back, all the eastern side beheld
Of Paradise, so late their happy seat,
Waved over by that flaming brand, the gate
With dreadful faces thronged, and fiery arms:
Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon;
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide;
They hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way.
"But I reckon I got to light out for the territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can’t stand it. I been there before. "
